When is a part not a part?

Thank you for spotting typos. Original (English) version was created by another editor, I added a German translation, so mistakes in purely instrumental parts are not mine, but still :slight_smile:

You actually found an interesting case: what shall be a right approach when the content (music) of a part is identical in two different contexts, but the correct name is context-dependent? A purely instrumental part is absolutely identical in context of a translated work, but it’s name in such context may be different.

I suppose a clean solution may be a possibility to reference a work under a different name from a parent. For example, when a particular work is considered in a context of parent English version, it is called “March”, in a context of German translation the right name is “Marsch”. Somewhat similar to “credited as” property for a link from a recording to an artist, where an artist may be credited by a different name in a context of a particular recording.

Odd that the 3 parts that are common are consistent with the German translation, not the Original. Maybe to do with the sequence of edits made.

I had thought perhaps a ‘work->used in’ relationship might be nice (rather than specify the re-used work as a “part”) or add an attribute to the ‘part’ relationship to indicate ‘used in’. In either case the addition of ‘credited-as’ would make sense. But I suspect that this might be too big an ask for a relatively small number of use cases.

Sorry, you were right. I looked on old edits, and it was my error after all. Fixed: using style of the main (English) parent for names of shared child works.

OK, I’ve been wearing my thinking cap for a couple of days and this is what I have come up with (FWIW)

  1. As regards the “appropriation” of classical works by soundtrack “works”, I think there is a good measure of agreement that they should not be listed as parts.
  2. As regards a composer adding some parts to a work by another composer, unless there has also been revision of that previous work, I do not think that the previous composer’s works should be included as parts in some artificial “overall work” which also contains the new works as parts; particularly where the context makes absolutely clear that there is no such pretension on the part of the later composer. Instead (if the new work contains more than one part) I think it should be named separately with a disambiguation to make the connection clear.
  3. Where a composer has “repackaged” his original work, possibly including new parts or omitting some original parts and perhaps with some parts revised or translated, then I think it is appropriate to contain all this new package in some overall work, even if it contains some parts identical to the original. In this case there are two possible options:
    (a) Use the same name for the overall work in both cases, with the difference being clarified in disambiguation. In this case, the common parts will have names which fit in style-wise with the parent work in both cases, so they can be linked to both parents. This might typically be the case for a translation. Only the translated works will have different names and any instrumental parts will be unchanged.
    (b) Use a different name for the new overall work (with disambiguation as appropriate). In this case, style guidelines would indicate that the parts of this work should be named “New work name: Part name” (Note that the style guidelines for works are remarkably vague on this, but it is the standard practice based on the guidelines for track titles). In this case a new “work” would be needed in MB as (at present) contextual names are not possible - I would then suggest that the disambiguation makes it clear that it is identical to the part in the original work.
    Whether (a) or (b) is chosen would depend on the context and the editor’s judgement.

The implications of this for the works discussed in this thread are:

  • For The Planets Suite extension (with “Pluto” by Colin Matthews), delete the works (Mars->Uranus plus the original Neptune) that do not belong there. Neptune is a revision of the original Neptune and Pluto is an original work. An alternative (which I think is wrong) to name the extended work identically to the original with a disambiguation (as might be the case if Holst had extended his own work). In any case all the parts of the original are wrongly named and should just be The Planets, op. 32: I. Mars, the Bringer of War etc. (delete “suite for orchestra”). I would appreciate it if those who voted against the deleted works (@reosarevok :wink:) would revise their votes and others who agree with my analysis (@monxton et al) add their “yes” votes. After that, I will tidy up the names.

  • For Belshazzar, HWV 6, I think the approach is reasonable (especially after the tidying up that has been done), but there is a slight inconsistency in the naming between the translated and original parts. The original uses, for example, Act II, Scene2, name whereas the translation uses Act II, no.30, name. This leads to an inconsistency for the common parts. I don’t know the reason for the difference.

As regards how the Classical Extras plugin plays with all this, I am pleased to say that (after discovering a couple deeply-buried bugs that Belshazzar helped to winkle out), it should provide neat and consistent results (in the new version to be released shortly).

Done - thanks - hopefully all the edits will go through now. I’ll sort out the names and work on the plugin release.

Another interesting case is Le tombeau de Couperin (orch. Zoltán Kocsis). Kocsis only orchestrated the fugue and toccata, which were omitted from Ravel’s orchestration of what was originally a piano work. I’m inclined to think that the “parent” work for the Kocsis orchestration should only include the orchestrations he did and not the others which are purely Ravel’s. Le tombeau de Couperin: Prélude. Vif (orch. Zoltán Kocsis) is certainly misleading, but I also don’t think it is right to include Le Tombeau de Couperin: I. Prélude (for orchestra) - the Ravel orchestration - as part of Le tombeau de Couperin (orch. Zoltán Kocsis).

I agree if you are right and Kocsis orchestrated only 2 movements. But are you sure that is really the case? Meta-data on Kocsis’ orchestration suggests that he orchestrated all 6 parts. Do you have any link to check which one is true:

  • Ravel orchestrated 4 parts, Koksis orchestrated 2 remaining parts
  • or -
  • Ravel orchestrated 4 parts, Koksis independently orchestrated all 6 parts (that is, for 4 parts Koksis provided an alternative orchestration).

If former is the case, than you are right and Koksis’ orchestration shall contain only 2 parts he had orchestrated. But if the latter is the case, than I would say Koksis’s orchestration shall contain all 6 parts.

Koksis orchestrated only the 2 movements not orchestrated by Ravel:

From Wikipedia: Le tombeau de couperin
Several other composers have since created orchestrations of those two movements which Ravel omitted, the Fugue and the Toccata. David Diamond orchestrated the second movement Fugue, while the Hungarian pianist and conductor Zoltán Kocsis produced his own version of both the Fugue and the Toccata. However, here, the Toccata, scored for a very large orchestra, goes far beyond the limits of Ravel’s own, small orchestra, and the Fugue is set for winds only.